The Ugly Sister (19 page)

She can remember droning on to an ex-boyfriend once when she’d had too much to drink, but, after he got over the initial excitement that the great Cleo was actually her sister, his eyes glazed over and, to be honest, it was just as well, because when she sobered up she was mortified about the things she’d been saying. It seemed incredibly disloyal to be slagging her sister off to someone she didn’t even know that well. Thinking about it, that might have been the reason she stopped calling him and turned her phone off for a few weeks. She wasn’t that keen on him anyway. He was another one of her safe but dull options.

But Jon would understand. He knows Cleo even better than Abi does. No, make that much better than she does, these days. He knows how she turned her back on her family. He must have witnessed it. And he knows exactly how annoying and selfish and hurtful she can be. On the other hand, he loves her, despite all those things. He’s her husband. It’s his job to be loyal to her. Still, she can’t stop herself. Maybe it’s the wine but it suddenly seems really important to Abi that Jon understands things from her point of view.

‘It was,’ she says. ‘Cleo, well, Caroline, was the focus of everyone’s world. It was hard to compete.’

‘That must have been tough when you were a teenager.’

‘You could say that.’ Before she can even stop herself she’s telling him how close she and Caroline were before Caroline got spotted and how much it hurt when she just disappeared out of Abigail’s life one day. She tells him how Philippa and Andrew thought the sun shone out of Caroline and, despite the fact that she barely even remembered to phone them from one week to the next, they always acted as if she was the perfect daughter. How there didn’t seem much point Abi even attempting to do anything interesting with her life because she couldn’t hope to impress.

Jon listens to it all intently, head on one side. (Abi loves how he does that head-on-one-side thing. It makes you feel as if he thinks you’re the most interesting person he’s ever met and he wants to be sure he’s heard every word. God help him if she is. He needs to get out more.)

‘You’d have been doing it for you, though. It’s not a competition.’

She knows he’s right. She realized when it already seemed to be too late that the only person she was punishing by not pursuing a career was herself. OK, so Philippa and Andrew wouldn’t have thought that whatever she did was as boast-worthy as Caroline’s career, but so what. It was nothing to do with them. On the other hand, Abi can’t bear to be reminded of the fact that she is the architect of her own un-remarkableness. She can think it about herself, but
she definitely doesn’t want anyone else to think it about her.

‘You wouldn’t understand,’ she says a little petulantly. ‘You had to be there.’

‘It wasn’t meant as a criticism.’ Abi can see that he’s nervous he’s upset her. ‘And you’re right. I can’t possibly understand what it was really like. Ignore me.’

‘No. It’s me. I get all defensive when I feel put on the spot. It’s stupid. And the truth is I can’t blame Cleo for the way my life has turned out …’

‘Is it really that bad, though?’ Jon says. ‘I mean you’ve got Phoebe. You’ve got a job you like. Not everyone has to fight their way to the top of a career ladder. There are other things that are just as important.’

‘That’s easy for you to say. Mr Successful Advertising Agency.’

‘It’s a middling run-of-the-mill agency that does pretty well with very unexciting clients.
onehitcomparison.com
is about as glamorous as we get. And I may be the boss, but we don’t exactly rake in a fortune. And, honestly, these days it’s just a job. It’s not exciting, it’s not particularly challenging, but it’s what I do. I’m just grateful we’re still afloat and that we might actually manage to see out the recession. If we’re lucky. We’re not exactly McCann’s.’

‘Cleo always made it sound like you were.’

Jon rubs his temples with his right hand. He sighs. ‘I know.’

‘I thought you were a big shot,’ she says, and she smiles.

Luckily he laughs. ‘I do OK. I mean by a lot of people’s standards I do really well. Just not so well as she likes people to think, I guess. Honestly, it gets a bit embarrassing when I hear her talk about my business. It sounds like she’s talking about someone else. She doesn’t do it with our friends, obviously, because they’d know she was exaggerating, but people like your mum and dad …’

Now it all starts to make sense. ‘Is that why you hardly ever used to visit with her?’

He nods. ‘I didn’t know how to deal with it. So I thought that if I wasn’t there then she could boast about me as much as she liked and I wouldn’t have to know about it. Actually, I used to feel like I was a bit of a letdown to her, because she obviously needed you all to think I was something I wasn’t.’

‘Well, the good news is that if she didn’t marry you for your money and status it must have been love. Either that or you’re a con artist and she thought you were something you weren’t.’

‘I think she thought I was going to be the next Charles Saatchi.’

‘Well, you do like modern art and you don’t seem to go out much.’

He gives her a look that says ‘very funny’.

‘Honestly, I probably told her that was my plan. I can’t remember. I just know that then we had the kids
and she was still working all the time and other things started to seem more important.’

‘I’m sure she appreciated you being such a hands-on dad.’ (Abi knows she would have. Oh god, she would have found a million ways to show him her appreciation.) ‘After all, it would have been much harder for her to work if you hadn’t been.’

‘Mmm. Maybe.’ He doesn’t sound convinced and he’s right. His success or the lack of it must have been of crucial importance to Cleo, otherwise why did she go on about it so much? Abi feels bad for him. She wonders if Cleo has been making him feel how she’s made Abi feel all these years: inadequate and unworthy. And suddenly the best thing to do to rid herself of her guilty crush seems to be to make sure that he is as secure in his relationship with Cleo as he can be. The happier they are the less likely it is that she is going to keep fantasizing about him and her. At least that’s the plan.

‘Well, she was always saying she did,’ she lies. Rather convincingly if she says so herself.

Jon smiles at her. He has a kind of lopsided closed-mouth smile that always makes him look as if he’s thinking of something funny and maybe just a bit naughty. Not that it’s important. Not that it makes her want to throw herself across the room at him. ‘Nice try,’ he says. OK so maybe her lying skills aren’t quite as accomplished as she’d thought.

She decides it’s not fair to patronize him too much.
‘All right, she didn’t, but she should have.’ She actually blushes when she says this. Great, so the blushes are back. She doesn’t know what that means. Maybe this is Mach five. A level never before attained. A level Abi didn’t even know existed.

‘You’re way too nice to be an Attwood,’ he says, and she doesn’t know if she’s imagining it, but she thinks he holds her gaze just a fraction longer than is strictly necessary (according to the brother-/sister-in-law etiquette code as just devised by her). His eyes, in case anyone was wondering, are a dark soulful brown, which, Abi feels, is a surprising and not unattractive contrast to his dirty-blond hair. Just in case you wanted to know. Which you might. She forces herself to look away.

‘I’m exhausted,’ she says, nearly leaping out of her seat. ‘I should go to bed.’

Despite the fact that the shop doesn’t open till nine thirty she is sitting on the step with two coffees and a bag of pastries at quarter to. It’s not even a nice enough day to go for a walk in the park, but there’s a tiny stripy awning she can shelter under and it’s preferable to being at home as she now laughingly refers to Jon and Cleo’s house. Jon has taken a day off work to look after the two girls and it’s best Abi is well out of the way.

She couldn’t get to sleep for what seemed like hours last night thinking about that look that he gave her. On the one hand thrilled, excited, her heart pounding: he likes me. On the other horrified and a bit sickened. Has she given off way more signals than she ever intended and unwittingly pushed him into feeling something he most definitely shouldn’t be feeling?

Or maybe it was just the wine. She’s getting quite a taste for wine these days. She’s thinking maybe she might become an alcoholic when she grows up. That’d give her life some purpose. They’d had three big glasses each, about a bottle and a half between them, by the time Abi realized she had to get out of
there fast or live to regret the consequences. She still finds it unlikely, though. Jon doesn’t strike her as the kind of man who would just randomly flirt once he’s had a few. He takes his marriage too seriously.

His marriage TO MY SISTER, she says to herself over and over again.

Oh god, she’s hoping he hasn’t picked up on the vibes or the hormones or whatever it is that must be positively oozing out of her whenever she’s around him. Please let it just be the drink or a moment of madness or a complete misinterpretation by her of what was meant as an ordinary run-of-the-mill glance.

That’s it, she tries to convince herself. She’s so besotted that she’s reading meaning into things where there was none intended. She’s transferring her feelings onto him and imagining that a look must mean something because if she had gazed at him for that long it certainly would. That comforts her for about five seconds and then she pulls up the video of that look from her memory bank and plays it back to herself in slow motion and she knows, she just knows, that however much she might wish she was, she’s not making it up.

After work, Stella joins Richard and Abi in the pub for their usual two drinks. Abi’s glad. She likes having Stella around. She tries to make her drinks last as long as possible, which results in the other two sitting there for ages with empty glasses while they wait for
her to finish her second. They’re about to call it a night and leave when Stella suggests they might as well have another one because they don’t have plans and, although Abi doesn’t want to be a gooseberry, she accepts without hesitation.

‘I don’t feel like going home yet, to be honest. It’s a bit awkward.’

‘Ah,’ Richard says, sitting back in his seat.

‘No, not “ah”. There’s no “ah” about it. It just isn’t my house and sometimes I feel a bit in the way.’

‘Isn’t Cleo in the States this week?’ Richard remembers every piece of Cleo news Abi tells him. She really must learn to keep her mouth shut.

‘Yes, but …’

‘Ah.’

‘OK, what am I missing?’ Stella says, looking from one to the other. ‘I’m clearly not getting the subtext.’

‘Nothing,’ Abi says defensively.

‘Abi has the hots for her brother-in-law,’ Richard announces triumphantly.

‘No –’ Abi starts to say, but he’s not finished.

‘You only have to mention his name and she blushes.’

‘You don’t even remember his name.’

‘And this week her sister is away working, so I imagine it’s a bit like a Tennessee Williams play in their household at the moment. All meaningful looks and the air full of simmering passion.’

If only he knew how right he was.

‘Abi!’ Stella says, and Abi says, ‘He’s talking rubbish. Just for a change.’

‘And, actually, I do remember his name. It’s Jon. And do you know why I do? Because you never stop talking about him.’ He smiles at her. Got you.

‘Honestly, Stella,’ Abi says, ignoring Richard, ‘he’s exaggerating. I’m just surprised to find I like Jon, that’s all. I thought I didn’t.’

‘But you’re not about to jump him while your sister is out of the picture?’

‘No! Of course not!’

‘Good,’ Stella says. ‘I didn’t have you down as a husband stealer.’

‘Absolutely, a hundred per cent not,’ Abi says, and she means it.

Richard smirks. ‘But you wish you could, don’t you?’

‘OK, you. Enough,’ Stella says. ‘Go and get us another drink.’

‘Don’t mind him,’ she says once he’s out of earshot and on his way to the bar. ‘You know what he’s like. He’s only teasing.’

Abi forces a laugh. ‘Oh, I know. It takes more than that to wind me up.’ In fact, she feels a real need to confide in someone, to talk over how she’s feeling and what she’s going to do about it, but, much as she likes Stella, this is only the second time she’s met her, so she thinks that would count as too much too soon. There’s no one she can talk to who would understand.
She doesn’t understand herself. So she tells Stella how she gets her own back on Richard by giving the hormonal ladies hope, and Stella’s laughing so much that when he comes back from the bar he asks what’s so funny.

‘Nothing,’ Stella says innocently.

‘You,’ Abi says to him, and gives him a big cheesy grin.

In the Ladies she rattles off a quick text to Jon – ‘Out for the evening so eat without me’ – and then agonizes about whether or not to put a kiss on the end. She puts a kiss on the end of pretty much every communication she sends. It’s just a habit and she never even thinks about whether the person on the receiving end even registers it or not. It comes from having a teenage daughter who covers everything, including her homework and probably her A-level exam papers, with hearts and kisses. This time, though, the innocent little x seems to be laden with subtext. Abi puts one on, takes it off again, puts it on, takes it off. Eventually she decides it’s better without. She can’t imagine Jon sprinkles kisses liberally on his texts and she doesn’t want him trying to analyse her meaning.

In the end the three of them have such a good time that she forgets about Jon. The five glasses of wine help. Both Richard and Stella are such good company that Abi’s cheeks ache from laughing by the time they get up to go. She doesn’t realize how drunk
she is feeling until she gets out into the fresh air and starts to totter round the corner to the house. She offers up a quick thank you that they went to the closest pub to the house and not the one they usually frequent all the way up Haverstock Hill. It’s a nice drunk, though. A happy, how-bad-can-it-be drunk.

Luckily she finally got around to getting herself a key cut, so she doesn’t have to ring the bell and disturb everyone, but she can see the light in the living room is on, which means that Jon must still be up. She fannies around trying to get the key in the lock quietly, which takes her about four attempts, and then she tiptoes heavily through the hall and bumps straight into a table, knocking a lamp – a very expensive lamp, she has no doubt – onto the floor. She scrabbles around trying to pick it up, cursing her lack of coordination. She’s not so drunk that she’s unaware of her state, unfortunately, so she is completely conscious of how ridiculous she looks, flailing around on the floor, when she looks up and sees Jon standing in the living-room doorway, watching her with an amused look on his face.